How viable is my plan?

3 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **How viable is my plan?**

   So my current plan for moving to japan is this:
   1. Work one more year in my home country while saving money and studying japanese as much as I can
   2. Apply for a WHV in japan, again saving as much money and trying to really get to a conversational level while I’m there
   3. Use my funds to apply to a japanese college, switch from a WHV to a student visa and get a degree in japan (not majoring in japanese)
   4. With said degree try to find a job in japan.

   What do you think about my plan? Before anyone suggests I should get a degree in my home country rather than in japan: it’s easier to go to college in my current situation in japan than here, trsut me. And the education here isn’t even that great either so I’m pretty sure I’d find a job back home with my japanese degree, if not I’d go back to my current job.
   Do you think it’s difficult to get a job as a foreigner with a japanese bachelors degree? I’d imagine it would be easier than with a western degree but apparently not.

   I’m curious to hear about your thoughts

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2. The first flaw in your plan is “get conversational”. That won’t be enough for university in Japan. You’ll need to be at least N2 level (higher than conversational) maybe even N1 depending on what you study, and you’ll need to pass entrance exams as well. This is not just being able to converse, you need to be able to read and hand write over 2,000 Kanji. Switching from WHV to student in Japan also may not be possible. You’ll need to go back home and apply normally.

   The second flaw is money. Japan is still expensive, especially city centers like Tokyo. You’ll need to bring a lot of money with you. Whatever you can save while on WHV (that’s assuming you’ll spend the whole year working full time which will not be easy to achieve with barely conversational Japanese) probably won’t be enough unless you have decent savings already before you go to Japan. That would have to be enough for the year of WHV + 4 years tuition, accomodation, living expenses during university, where you can only work part time…

   Applying for a student visa will also require proof of funds, and it’ll be very hard to self-sponsor.. if not impossible. If you’ve got someone sponsoring you and willing to help with money, it might work out (if you manage to overcome language barrier, maybe do an English language program?) otherwise, sorry. :/

3. I feel like if you have a concrete goal (get accepted to Japanese university) you’d do better with a more structured language learning program. I don’t know what your Japanese level is now, or what your savings potential is, but you may want to consider doing two years of language school instead of one year of working holiday.

   You’ll also want to double check that your country is one of the ones where the working holiday agreement allows folks to change status and doesn’t require that you go home when its over.

   What is it that you intend to study when you finally make it to university?